While most Western countries have a uniform system of legal education, in Japan, membership in the legal profession can be achieved through different ways and qualifications. Lawyers, judges and prosecutors form only a very small part of the legal profession. Thus, many of the academically trained legal professionals are employed in para-legal jobs as non-lawyers. Against this backdrop Japan introduced in 2004 the U.S. style law school system to boost the number of fully fledged Western style lawyers. This article argues that the achievement of numerical targets seems to have been at the forefront of legal education reforms without giving regard to the wider educational and professional needs and the discrepancy between offer and demand with students and prospective candidates having to shoulder the high cost for education against a backdrop of dim employment prospects.